As I thought and prayed about what to write in this month’s Pastor’s Perspective the idea of our independence as a nation and independence as people kept bubbling to the surface!

We tend to connect FREEDOM with our INDEPENCENCE, but there is not necessarily a direct connection between the two!

There is of course an indirect connection.

We gained our independence from the country and King that previously owned us, which allowed us to develop a system of government that provided for freedom, but it could have gone many ways.

We might have just as easily appointed our own King and subjugated ourselves to a new human ruler!

So how did independence become freedom? Luckily, most of the founding fathers who debated our new form of government were Christian men with strong moral and ethical values! They held firm to an essential idea: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

In other words, they believed that ALL men (people) are heirs to GOD GIVEN freedom! This is the reason for this country’s early success and if this success is to continue, this idea will be central to that success as well!

When you think about it you know that you only have the freedoms that God allows you! You know that no other person is any more or less Loved by God than you are! You know that everyone has the saving Grace of Jesus Christ!

And you know that God has granted you free will, but that it is only through choosing to give yourself over to Jesus Christ that you will be truly free!

Galatians 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

So where ever we are in the world, ruled by men, God has given us freedom! The single most important choice you will ever make with that freedom is whether or not you will choose to give yourself to Jesus Christ!

He will not make you choose Him; He easily could, but that would be slavery!

He will not make you honor Him; He could, but that would be vanity!

He will not make you follow Him; He could, but that would be captured imprisonment!

No…if you are going to follow Jesus Christ, He set it up that we must FREELY make the choice!

With every ounce of my freedom and independence, I so choose!

How about you? What choices will you make with your GOD GIVEN freedom?